St Thomas More School

Best elementary school here but the principal is not very good at her job however everything else is amazing

My son has been bullied for over a year at this school. Multiple times in 2023 a student has bullied my son and even threatened him with a pair of scissor to his head. This school has done nothing to make the classroom a safe space for my son. The principal will smooth talk you into believing they will take care of the problem but they won't even remove the other child from the same class room. We are contacting the superintendent and school bord and removing my son from the school

While there are some great teachers at Linwood, there are others, along with admin; who do not have what is in the best interest of student's first, but what is easiest for them. Hopefully new principal next year will do better. For example, we have found IEP meetings to be extremely difficult to schedule and they wait until the last minute (right before their deadline) to schedule the IEP meeting, even when I have tried to schedule the meetings well in advance to avoid scheduling conflicts. Additionally, when I have asked questions during the IEP meetings, my questions were often met with annoyance and condenscending attitudes. I had to make several requests for IEP progress notes, which should given with every report card. IEP Meetings were only scheduled for 20-30 minutes, so meetings were rushed.We had major concerns about our student's math skills because they had deep difficulty with basic multiplication and division (upper grade student), the homework would cause overwhelm. We requested more support for math from the IEP team and we were shown "data" that our child was performing ok. When the IEP psychological evaluation results came back, our student scored in the FIRST percentile for math for their age and grade. We asked the IEP team about this discrepancy and they blamed our student for being a bad test taker. Our student also experienced harassment, intimidation and bullying. Students at Linwood are expected to report "conflict" immediately, even in front of their bully. Our student experienced major bullying over the years at this school. More recently, one of the last events was reported to me directly after school, so I was able to report it to the teacher the same day. The plan was for a restorative conversation, however it took several days for it occur and then my student was bullied horribly again. This time it was reported before dismissal, the day it occurred, when they felt safe to do so. My student requested cameras be checked and his friend to be interviewed since he witnessed everything. Bullies denied it, recess staff didn't notice anything, so case closed. They never checked the cameras or interviewed the friend (confirmed by friend). The admin blamed my student for not reporting it immediately in front of the bullies (victim blaming). We had to get the district involved after Linwood admin stonewalling and giving poor excuses for not investigating thoroughly. We had no choice but to pull him from Linwood.

I highly recommend this school for its dedicated teachers who prioritize building strong relationships with students and the community. Their emphasis on parental involvement through the PTA showcases their commitment to a collaborative educational experience. Additionally, the exceptional administrative team adds to the overall positive atmosphere and efficient operation of the school.

This school focuses on positive Christian values with an excellent committed faculty. They try to meet the student where they are academically so that the student can maximize there potential.